Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

"It was nine o'clock of a crisp, winey morning in Tokyo, and the morning rush hour crowd milling around the Imperial stage alongside the carp ponds was paralyzed by a tiger-faced Samurai who appeared and hurled a slug o curious metal and unforgettable warnings and admonitions at them. "

"One book was the Zen monk Dogen's teachings; the other was a copy of the ancient samurai Musashi's Five Rings, a book of strategy. Nobu consulted both often, consistently amazed at how apt the advice was after so many centuries. He thumbed to a passage of Musashi that he felt was relevant: 'For a warrior, there is neither gate nor interior. There is no prescribed outer stance nor lasting inner meaning. Between the warrior and defeat, there is only his practiced ability to sum up changing situations instantly. You must appreciate this.' "

Doyle, Arthur Conan. "The Sign of Four " in A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four. New York: Berkley/Penguin Putnam (1994; c. 1890); pg. 201.

"The aborigines of the Andaman Islands may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race upon this earth, though some anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of Africa, the Digger Indians of America, and the Terra del Fuegians... "

Bushmen of the Kalahari (San)

Africa

1905

Green, Roland J. "Written by the Wind: A Story of the Draka " in Drakas! (S. M. Sterling, ed.) New York: Baen (2000); pg. 103.

"...500-kilo incendiary clusters... The Draka and the Americans had even used them in combat, on Bushmen in the Sahara and Moro rebels in the Philippines... " [The San/Kalahari Bushmen of southern Africa do not, of course, actually live in the Sahara, which is northwestern Africa. So this is evidently a reference to natives as 'bushmen' in a generic sense.]

Pg. 162: "Granted, they [the Minids] could still find pleasure in the backward amorousness favored even today by Kalahari Bushmen... "; Pg. 165: "After looking at each other with the open-mouthed 'play faces' common to young chimpanzees and the children of Kalahari Bushmen, they left the hut... "

[Buddy Holley tells what happened after his plane crash in Africa.] "Bushmen found me. Tribesmen from out of the Kalahari. First thing I knew was a !Kung shaman leanin' down over me and lettin' out the most ungodly screams you ever heard. Later I found out he was taking the sickness into himself and then gettin' shed of it into the air... That was the beginning.' "

Pg. 5: "On the great dead-flat plain of the Kalahari Desert, where the land stretches empty to the horizon... "; Pg. 7: "'Two days ago,' Heimbach went on after a moment... 'a bunch of Bushmen raided a cattle ranch in the Ghanzi area. Usual sort of thing--cut a cow out of the herd, kill it and butchered it on the spot, you know.'

Custer knew. The Bushmen were constantly bringing trouble on themselves with their addiction to cattle-rustling. Of course, living as they did on the edge of bare subsistence, they must find the scrawny Kaffir cattle irresistible targets.

'This time... things got out of hand. The rancher happened to show up as they were cutting up the kill. He shot one of them. The others scattered around the bush--but when the damned fool dismounted, one of them put a poisoned arrow into his back.'

'And, of course,' Heimbach added, 'the same for any other renegade Bushmen you find.'

'Yes, sir.' Since no Bushman had any legal status whatever--outside of a few bondservants, mostly raised from captured infants and kept as household novelties by aristocratic Drakia families--they were all in effect 'renegades' and subject to out-of-hand disposal on sight. "

Pg. 16: "A few more weeks and the central Kalahari would be almost impassible for any humans but Bushmen--and even they would be holed up around the few permanent waterholes, traveling as little as possible in the terrible heat... Even now, it was hard to imagine how anyone or anything could live in this parched desolation. "; Pg. 17: "Two days later they found the Bushmen camp.

There was no question of moving into position and making a textbook attack; no one, certainly not white men with horses, could sneak up on Bushmen in their own country. The only possible tactic was to move in fast and strike before the quarry could escape. " [Many other refs. to Bushmen, primarily as quarry of Custer's small military unit, throughout story, which runs from page 5 to 30. Other refs. not in DB.]

"The trackers looked at each other and then at Custer, still grinning. They were an odd-looking pair... Jonas was almost as small as the bodies [of the dead Bushmen] on the ground, and close to the same color. His mother had been full-blood River Bushman, taken in childhood from her home in the Okavango marshes by Ba-tswana slave raiders and sold to a brothel in Virconium; he had, he admitted cheerfully, no idea who or what his father had been. " [Other refs. to this char., not in DB.]

"A devout agnostic, Jubal rated all religions, from the animism of Kalahari Bushmen to the most intellectualized faith, as equal. "

Bushmen of the Kalahari (San)

United Kingdom

1994

Holdstock, Robert. The Hollowing. New York: Roc (1994); pg. 104.

"'Some of them are very like that indeed. Where I come from, in Brittany, the tradition is even older than in this country. But there are patterns here that are like those of the Bushmen. In the Kalahari there are caves and rock faces with the same sort of configurations. It's like two cultures fused together. Have you ever been to the Kalahari?' " [More, e.g., pg. 105.]

Bushmen of the Kalahari (San)

world

1800

Pohl, Frederik. The World at the End of Time. New York: Ballantine (1990); pg. 189-190.

"When the early European sea explorers had brought savages home to show off to their crowned heads and dabblers in science--people like Hawaiians and Tongans, bushmen and Amerindians from the Virginai coast--at leat the bewildered aboriginals had had the pleasure of being the centers of fascinated attention. They were sources of entertainment for their hosts. "

"'In short, life on the Moon Is much more like Bushman society prior to European contamination, or the basal culture of the Zuni, than it is like life here in California or Moscow or Peking... Now when I've explained that, people usually say how odd it is to find the staff of one of mankind's most advanced scientific projects behaving more like Bushmen than modern Americans...' "

"'...I like the idea of a country where there aren't any riots... and there aren't any wars and there aren't any lots of other things which make me despair of the human race! Until I was told about Beninia I thought they were all wiped out like Samoa and the Bushmen by Christianity and firewater and downright greed.' "

Bushmen of the Kalahari (San)

Zambia

2010

Baxter, Stephen. Manifold: Time. New York: Ballantine (2000); pg. 75.

"But everywhere the land was shaped by tracks, the footsteps of animals and birds overlaid in the white Kalahari sands. " [More takes place in this area, pg. 75-82, with people who seem like they might be the San/Kalahari bushmen, but they are identified later as Lozi.]

Pg. 199: "'Oh, p'rhaps a little knack for picking d'locks has somet'ing to do wit' it, non?' LeBeau said, deliberately slurring his words with a thicker-than-usual overlay of his native Cajun accent. "; Pg. 201: "And this was a chance. N'donnez j'mais sur en occasion, his father would say, in his soft Cajun mother tongue. Never overlook an opportunity. "; Pg. 205: "A shout from the garden announced that his time was running out. He reached for the knob--and yanked his hand back with a guttural Cajun curse as it sparked just before... " [Entire story focuses on LeBeau (Gambit), the Cajun X-Man. Other refs. not in DB.]

Cajun

galaxy

2029

Quick, William T. Planet of the Apes. New York: HarperCollins (2001); pg. 31.

"He in dere somewhere!' It was his uncle Jacques. The folks around Atelier Parish called him Snake Jake. Behind his back.

...Again the steel saw shrieked into wet cypress... He choked as the bayou washed over his face.

'Tol' you! Dat little gator-bait right dere. Get 'im.' Other voices joined in...

Jack Robicheaux flailed out in the darkness, one arm trapped in the sweaty sheet, the other reaching for the phone...

'Jack? said the voice on the other end of the line... 'Jack, this is Elouette. I'm callin' you from Louisiana. " [Many other refs. to Jack, and his niece Cordelia, two Cajuns who are among the main characters in this book. Other refs. not in DB.]

"Jack Robicheaux was waiting for her I the diner when she entered from the avenue. No surprise. He knew the transit system below Manhattan better than anyone else.

Every time Cordelia saw her uncle, she felt as if she were looking into a mirror... The family resemblance was undeniable. And then there was the less tangible similarity. Both had despaired of any kind of normal growing up in Louisiana; each in young adulthood had fled Cajun country and run away to New York City... Jack was the only person in the Robicheaux clan who meant anything at all to her. " [Many other refs. to these characters, not in DB.]

Cajun

Louisiana

1987

Shepard, Lucius. Green Eyes. New York: Ace Books (1984); pg. 32.

"'It's a luna moth,' she said. 'There was this old man back home, a real Cajun looney. He's blind now, or partially blind, but he used to keep thousands of luna moths in his back room and study their wing patterns. He claimed they revealed the natural truth... Clarence Brisbeau.' "

Cajun

Louisiana

1987

Shepard, Lucius. Green Eyes. New York: Ace Books (1984); pg. 98.

Pg. 98: "'I can't get used to this chicory,' he said. 'Can't a man get a regular cup of coffee 'round here?'

'Most of my customers are dumb coon-ass Cajuns,' said Sealey by way of apology. 'They can't live without it.' ";

Pg. 105: "...windshields polka-dotted by NRA and S.W. Louisiana Ragin' Cajun decals...' " [Much of this novel take place in Cajun areas of Louisiana. Other Cajun refs., not by name. All refs. by name are thought to be in DB.]

'I know, son,' Hayward said. "But you are not the prey we hoped to catch with this bait. Now put her down and step in here with me. I will explain.'

'You killin' your own children, homme?'

Hayward laughed. 'Corey, honey. Reassure the poor man.' " [This entire story is about Gambit, a Cajun. It takes place in New Orleans, but deals more with his background cultures of voodoo, and the Assassins Guild and Thieves Guild, and doesn't focus on Cajun culture. Possibly some other minor refs., not in DB.]

Pg. 13: "In the dead-of-night hours, the French Quarter in New Orleans... Tourists who walked near Jackson Park in the late hours walked quickly... it was that very closeness to the unknown, wrapped in the history of the old town, that brought them back the following year. Brought them back to the parties, back to the great Cajun cooking...

Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, knew every shadow, every alley... "

Pg. 111: "All the good restaurants in the Quarter were long closed, and the thick smells of gumbo and Cajun cooking had been replaced with the faint odor of... "; Pg. 113: "It smelled slightly like dead fish and motor oil, but nothing as bad as the thick water of Cajun country where Remy had grown up. And this river supposedly didn't have any alligators in it. " [Other refs. to Cajuns in book, as one of the main characters is Gambit, a Cajun. Other refs. not in DB.]

"Near noon I came across a footprint... The print is light and has only the single outline of the sole. So we are dealing with Amerindians, or Cajuns... This is, after all, Louisiana. "; Pg, 17: "I'd seen enough the last six weeks, up there in 2002 [the time the character is from] "

Cajun

Louisiana

2044

Sterling, Bruce. Distraction. New York: Bantam (1998); pg. 5.

Pg. 5: "In the curdled foot of winter, the cajun town seemed to be one giant oil refinery... "; pg. 20: "The food of the Cajun casinos was epic in scope. "; Pg. 43: "Fontenot had just bought the stove, well used, from the proprietor of a Cajun boucherie in Mamou. "; Pg. 44: "'Cajun is not a difficult cuisine,' said Negri patiently... 'Basically, Cajun is very old-fashioned French-peasant cooking. With way too much pepper. And lard. Tons of unhealthy lard.' " [Other refs., not in DB, incl. pg. 111, 231, 332, 341, 366, 415, 422, etc.]

"'We'll beam over there as soon as I eat,' O'Brien said, sitting down. 'I've heard your grandfather serves the best Cajun crawfish in New Orleans.' " [More about Captain Sisko's father's New Orleans restaurant, not in DB.]

Cajun

Lousiana

1869

Bethke, Bruce. Wild Wild West. New York: Warner Books (1999); pg. 60.

"In 1802 President Thomas Jefferson sent statesman James Monroe to Paris to negotiate Mississippi River access rights, and was somewhat surprised and stunned when the French offered to sell him the whole kit and kaboodle for fifteen million dollars, cash. Jefferson, not realizing the offer also included the descendants of the Acadians--or as they called themselves now, Cajuns--jumped at the offer.

The French laughed all the way to the bank. " [A scene in New Orleans, including references to Cajun names and culture, beginning pg. 60, but no other refs. to Cajuns by name.]

Pg. 50: "Gambit was there as well, muttering imprecations in Cajun French at the new espresso machine... 'Sacrement,' he said, shaking it gently, 'dis t'ing needs a card trick or two.' "; Pg. 343: "...and there transpired a genuine feast, mostly of Remy's making. Even the star-eating creature could not have ingested the amount of dirty rice he produced, not to mention the poulet sauvage, the red beans and rice, and numerous other Cajun specialties. Certainly the amount of chile in everything would have slowed it down, or so the Beast claimed. " [Other refs. to this Cajun character throughout novel, not in DB.]

Pg. 33: "...LeBeau... The opponent who faced Wolverine now was a tall Cajun from New Orleans, whose love of cards had led him to adopt the code name Gambit. "; Pg. 34: "He hit the ground within a few short feet of Gambit, too close for the Cajun to risk another missile attack... Both men got to their feet simultaneously, circling each other exactly as before, but with increased respect dawning in Wolverine's eyes. 'Nice move, Cajun.' " [Many other refs. to Gambit in book, not in DB.]

"Jack sang. He filled the darkness with zydeco, the bluesy Cajun-Black mixture he remembered from his childhood... All he really had to say was, 'Wha' de hail--' as he fetched up against the stone of the tunnel's far wall... " [Many other refs. to 'Sewer Jack' Robicheaux, the Cajun who is one of the story's main characters, although the word 'Cajun' is apparently used only here.]

Pg. 183: "He felt as if he were drinking after his own funeral. 'Cajuns do great wakes,' he said aloud, pouring another brandy. "; Pg. 192: "He had some idea of what he had devoured over the past day and night and didn't want to think about it. Blind, albino gar. You wouldn't find that on the menu at any Cajun restaurant in New York. " [Jack Robicheaux, a Cajun from Louisiana, and his niece Cordelia are two of the main characters of this story. Refs. to 'Cajun' by name in DB, but other refs. to the character are not.]

"...Jack Robicheaux... 'What? Never mind. Y'all speak in shorthand anyway. Worse'n Cajuns. When are y'all leaving?' Cordelia stood by Jack's head... " [Other refs. to Jack and Cordelia, two Cajun characters, but no other refs. to Cajuns by name. Story is short, pg. 507-512, but these are significant characters in the whole book and the Wild Cards series.]

"'This Louisiana thing. Christ! Thibodaux is the antithesis of everything Quinn has been trying to stand for. Why in hell should the mayor haul his ass all the way down to Baton Rouge to embrace an antediluvian bigot and espouse...' " [More.]

Pg. 307: "Everybody in the fictional town raved over the butcher's steak-and-kidney pies, spicy Cajun sausages, and lady-finger meat-spread sandwiches. "; Pg. 421: "'...Fella had him on the circuit in Louisiana, down in Cajun land...' "

"His work had nothing to do with jazz, everything to do with his Cajun heritage. It would have been much easier to do something simple for a large-scale orchestral composition. A folk-song suite, perhaps, utilizing the tunes and fiddling he'd grown up listening to in the parish. Some simple orchestrating and he'd have a piece worthy of a recording.

But that wasn't what had been swimming around inside his head for the past fifteen years... No, his intent, his aim was greater than that. He was striving for nothing less than a synthesis of Cajun folk music with contemporary symphonic tradition... " [Many other refs., not in DB. Will Dulac, a Cajun from New Orleans, is the novel's main character.]

"Will spread his hands. 'Not much. Once you get past my music, there's not much else to talk about. I'm half Cajun, though I don't guess that would mean anything to you. We call ourselves Humans.' " [Cajun also mentioned by name, pg. 217, 265.]

Cajun

world

1995

Foster, Alan Dean. The Dig. New York: Warner Books (1995); pg. 69.

"'See you guys in about an hour. If you happen to find a Circle-K down there, I'd like a cold six-pack and a giant bag of chips. Cajun-style.' "

The song and the air of stale, forced confinement in the van reminded Jocundra of traveling with Charlie's band. When he had described it to her, it had sounded romantic, but in reality it had been greasy food and never enough sleep and being groped by Quaaluded roadies. " [Also pg. 135.]

"Fate, I thought. Predestination; doctrine of the church, based on Augustine and Paul. Tim had once told me that Christianity as a Mystery Religion had come into existence as a means of abolishing the tyranny of fate, only to reintroduce it as predestination--in fact, double predestination: some predestined to hell, some to heaven. Calvin's doctrine. "

"...on a task that recontextualized humanity as a kind of god bacteria, chewing away at worlds, dying to prepare the ground for later life--dwarfed most grandiosely in the cosmic scheme of things, in an almost Calvinistic masochist-heroism--a parodic travesty of the Mars project--and yet just as magnificent. "

"'A man named Schrodinger illustrated the principle with this lovely parable about a cat and a bottle of poison--but my point is this: in classical physics, all is ultimately knowable. If you can understand the present, know it really well, unto the tiniest particle and its velocity, the n the future is predictable. As foreordained as the omst depressed Calvinist would have it. If the present is unknowable--if you can't demonstrate certainty even about the present--then it follows that the future is unknowable. And that means, my dear sir, that free will exists. We are not predestined robots...' "

"The psychophysiologist was Edward Jessup, then twenty-eight years old, middling height, slight of frame, flaxen-haired, fine, intense features, pale complexion. He wore gold-rimmed glasses which pinched his face and gave him a look of Calvinist austerity. Emily thought him very attractive in a monkish way. "

"Now he had sacrificed his career, in order as it seemed at the time to save his life. So by logic he had at that former time sacrificed Emily to save his life; it was as simple as that. Nothing could be cleaner. It was not an idealistic goal, not the old Puritan, Calvin-style high duty to vocation; it was nothing more than the instinct that inhabited and compelled every flatworm that crept. "

"Andrew Wiggin was Speaker for the Dead in the university city of Reykjavik, renowned as the conservator of Nordic culture, perched on the steep slopes of a knifelike fjord that pierced the granite and ice of the frozen world of Trondheim right at the equator...

'What do you know of the piggies?' he asked.

'They are the only hope of our redemption,' said one, who took Calvin rather more seriously than Luther. ";

pg. 39: "Andrew sighed at Styrka's unforgiving attitude; it was the fashion among Calvinists at Reykjavik to deny any weight to human motive in judging the good or evil of an act. Acts are good and evil in themselves, they said... ";

pg. 40: "Andrew nodded. 'There is our dilemma... Was the act evil, or was it, somehow, to the piggies' understanding at least, good? Are the piggies raman or varelse? For the moment, Styrka, hold your tongue. I know all the arguments of your Calvinism, but even John Calvin would call your doctrine stupid.' "

Calvinist

United Kingdom

1992

Dukthas, Ann. A Time for the Death of a King. New York: St. Martin's Press (1995; c. 1994); pg. 6.

[Referring to the year 1560.] "'They were led by the Calvinist John Knox, a religious fanatic. He couldn't stand Catholics and he couldn't tolerate women.'

'I have met a few Knoxes in my life,' Ann said. "

Calvinist

United Kingdom: England

1600

Anthony, Patricia. God's Fires. New York: Ace Books (1997); pg. 88.

[Year is estimated.] "'It seems to me,' Monsigner said, 'that foreign ideas have turned the rest of Europe into a Babel of philosophies, everyone shouting at one another: Descartes and Hobbes. The English with their Calvinists. The French bedeviled by their Huguenots.' "

Calvinist

United Kingdom: Scotland

1930

Batchelor, John Calvin. The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica. New York: Dial Press (1983); pg. 178.

"Longfaeroe's prodigy requires brief explanation of the Reverend Learned Sharon Longfaeroe. He was born in the Highland of Scotland, brought up in the Wee Kirk of Scotland, a literally-minded group of Calvinists, also hard-minded, high-minded, vigilant, hungry for inspiration. "; Pg. 179: "There was trouble; one daughter was drowned in an accident that Longfaeroe blamed on himself, as is the way with hardset Calvinists--what goes wrong is their fault, what goes right is God's handiwork. "

We are always striving to increase the accuracy and usefulness of our website. We are happy to hear from you. Please submit questions, suggestions, comments, corrections, etc. to: webmaster@adherents.com.